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Popeye vs. Doctor Manhattan
Description “Popeye versus DC Comics! Two of the most over-powered (and bald) characters in western media clash in a duel of earth-shattering proportions!” Opening Spider: During our run on Death Battle, we’ve seen many characters of pitted against each other. We’ve levels of power varying from pathetic to planet-shattering, but not a single character so far has come anywhere close to these two we have selected for today’s battle. Popeye the Sailor Man. Pixie: And Doctor Manhattan, the most powerful man in the Watchmen Universe. Spider: I’m Spider. Pixie: And I’m Pixie! Spider: And it’s our job to analyze their power, abilities and skills to find out who would win a Death Battle. Popeye Spider: Popeye’s backstory is well… all over the place, due to his comics and his cartoons having alternate continuities so loose they barely qualify as continuities. He was originally hired on as a sailor for a voyage to Dice Island by Castor Oyl in some hair-brained scheme to rip off a casino using a magic lucky chicken. Popeye is best known, however, for his service during World War II, his ongoing battles with Bluto and his courtship (and frequent rescue) of Olive Oyl. Pixie: Okay, I know what you’re thinking. How the heck could a one-eyed veggie-munching sailor be one of the most powerful characters in pop culture? Well, prepared to be shocked, because Popeye is capable of some absolutely ridiculous bullshit. Spider: Popeye is an extremely strong and gifted brawler, and his durability is incredible. In addition to quickly shrugging off beatings from the likes of Bluto and other brutes, Popeye has survived absurd injuries like having fire-works go off in his face and being chewed on by a dinosaur with no lasting harm. Pixie: In addition to his fists, Popeye wields his trusty pipe, which can be used to create flames so hot they can cut through steel, or to propel him through the air like a jet engine. But Popeye’s true strength doesn’t shine until he downs a can of his favorite food, spinach. Spider: Consuming spinach gives Popeye seemingly infinite strength while making him virtually indestructible and healing any damage he has sustained. In this state, he can easily plow through hordes of enemies with ease. Not only that, while in his spinach-enhanced state, Popeye gains access to a seemingly unlimited supply of the mysterious, reality-warping power commonly dubbed the Toon Force. Pixie: The Toon Force is what lets Popeye and other cartoon characters like him do the silly, physics-breaking crap that makes cartoons so fun to watch. In Popeye’s case, the Toon Force lets him do stuff like punch Bluto so hard he flies into space and destroys most of the moon, punch a bull so hard it turns a pre-butchered deli display, inexplicably turn a steel girder into a giant magnet, become immune to hypnotism while suddenly becoming a master hypnotist, use his fists to deflect blasts of magic, turn invisible and punch out ghosts, punch a Native American so hard he turns into a giant penny, pull the Grand Canyon shut with a lasso, and blow the sun out like it’s a fucking candle. Spider: But all of these pale in comparison to Popeye’s most impressive feat. Popeye was once erased from existence by the animator of his cartoon, leaving only his pipe and hat. After his pipe managed to suck down a can of spinach, Popeye was given enough power to will himself back into existence, despite having been completely obliterated. Pixie: And then he jumped out of the cartoon universe and into the real world and beat the every-loving shit out of the animator just for having the gall to try erasing him. That’s like reaching into heaven and punching out God. Not even the boundaries of his own reality can hold this guy. Can anything stop him? Spider: Well… hard to say. Popeye does have his faults. Though he has shown a few strokes of intelligence, he never really shows any kind of tactics, preferring to charge in head-first, fists swinging. He’s also got a bad temper and a wicked jealous streak where Olive is concerned. He relies heavily on spinach, and the effects of spinach are only temporary, but on the other hand, he always seems to have a spare can handy, and he has never failed at anything after eating spinach. Eating spinach has granted Popeye easy victory in everything from combat to dance competitions, and essentially lets him bypass the laws of physics at will. Pixie: You’d be hard-pressed to find a sailor as powerful and tenacious as Popeye. from the Popeye Cartoon. Popeye. I’m Popeye the Sailor Man! Toot, toot. Doctor Manhattan Spider: Jon Osterman was born the son of a watch-maker, and took up his father’s craft with passion, but after the theory of relativity proved time to be mutable and essentially illusory, his father threw away Jon’s watch-making tools, proclaiming his craft to be outdated and worthless. Pixie: Uh, that’s kinda harsh, don’t you think? Time might be relative, but that’s not going stop my boss from firing my ass if I show up an hour late. Personally, I think the smart-phone did a lot more to make watches useless than relativity ever did. Spider: Jon’s father urged him to pursue a career a nuclear physics, which Jon did, eventually taking part in an experiment involving intrinsic fields, the stable collection of atomic bonds that keep solid objects well… solid. Jon and his team were experimenting with removal of intrinsic fields from objects. Pixie: Good news is, they succeeded in making a machine that removed intrinsic fields, and it worked perfectly! Bad news is, Jon got locked inside just as the machine was about to go off. The removal of his intrinsic field splattered Jon like an over-microwaved burrito, scattering his atoms. However, this wasn’t the end of Jon’s story. Spider: Using the unfathomable power the accident had granted him, John reassembled himself months later, and was reborn as the luminescent and incredibly powerful being the media dubbed ‘Doctor Manhattan’, in reference to the Manhattan Project. Though frankly, that name is a bit unfair, because Manhattan makes the atom bomb look like a fire-cracker. Pixie: Doc wields one of the most over-the-top sets of powers in comic books, and that’s saying something. He can reassemble himself after being blasted into atoms, instantly teleport himself and others inter-planetary distances, and use his seemingly limitless telekinesis to blast his enemies into steaming blood-stains at will. Spider: His telekinesis is not only monumental in its power, but astonishing in its precision. Doctor Manhattan can perceive and manipulate matter on the atomic level, performing feats of pseudo-alchemy such as turning steel walls to glass or guns into smoke. Pixie: And we’re not even close to done yet. He can turn intangible, causing attacks to pass harmlessly through him, create clones of himself, increase in size and see the past, present and future at the same time. He also demonstrated super-durability the time he went Walkin’ on the Sun. Because apparently even atomic-powered gods have a soft spot for Smash Mouth. Oh, and there’s also the fact that he straight up won the Vietnam War for the United States, pretty much single-handed. Your history books lied to you. Spider: More recently, Doctor Manhattan demonstrated control of space and time bordering on reality-warping, when he killed the immortal called Pandora altered the continuity of the DC Comics Universe, causing the reboot known as the New 52. Pixie: Wait, I thought the Flash did that. Spider: It’s been retconned. While Doc is a nigh-indestructible and unstoppable force with perception beyond human understanding, he is not omnipotent. Pixie: Nah, he’s just really, really close. Spider: Manhattan is not omniscient, nor omnipresent. Watchmen established that he could stop ninety-nine percent of Soviet Russia nuclear armory, but one percent would be able to evade him, destroying the United State. His ability to see into the future can be blocked by faster-than-light particles called tachyons. This can also cause him to become confused and mix up different moments in time. Also, while he is incredibly intelligent and perceptive, he can be a bit forgetful, such as the time he teleported his ex-girlfriend Laurie to Mars, but forgot she needed oxygen to live. Pixie: Not cool, Doc. Spider: Doctor Manhattan’s most significant limitation, however, is his apathy. His transformation caused him to grow more and more distant from humanity, and it takes a lot to motivate him to action. He has repeatedly stood idly by and allowed humanity to commit massive atrocities, even while his former loved ones were at risk of dying. Pixie: But once Manhattan decides to take action, virtually nothing can stop him. from Watchmen. Doctor Manhattan (to Ozymandiaz): I've walked across the surface of the sun. I've seen events so tiny and so fast they hardly can be said to have occurred at all. But you... you're just a man. And the world's smartest man poses no more threat to me than does its smartest termite. DEATH BATTLE! Spider: Alright, our combatants are set. Let’s end this debate once and for all. Pixie: It’s time for a DEATH BATTLE! * * * ' '''Popeye skips down the street of crowded city, hand-in-hand with Olive oil, merrily humming his own theme tune. Suddenly, Olive Oyl shrieks and points her finger down the street. “Popeye, a flasher!” Doctor Manhattan is floating just down the street, naked. Popeye gasps and widens his single eye as Olive Oyl turns and runs away, crying. “Oh my garsh!” Popeye exclaims. Doctor Manhattan turns towards Popeye, his expression indifferent. “I see that you’re about to get angry. You’re going to try fighting me. I’d prefer that you didn’t.” Popeye goes red in the face, and steam blows out his ears. “Of course I’m mad, ya over-grown smurf! You just flashed yer bits at me girl Olive. Have some decency, man!” Manhattan sighs. “Do you have any idea how trivial your anger appears from my viewpoint? The human aversion towards nudity is nonsensical, anyways.” Popeye realizes that Manhattan has no intention of apologizing. “That’s all I can stands, and I can’t stands no more!” “That’s a redundant statement,” Manhattan sighs. “Alright, you asked for it!” ' FIGHT!' ' Popeye charges at Manhattan and swings a fist at him, but Doc teleports out of the way and reappears five feet away. Popeye looks at his fist, surprised, and charges in for another swing. Doc teleports behind Popeye, evading him again. Popeye whirls around, his fist drawn back, but this time Doc teleports him ten feet into the air. Popeye swings his fist through empty air, then falls to the ground flat on his face. “Hold still, ya big, blue palooka!” the sailor growls, rising to his feet. Doctor Manhattan obliges, holding still as Popeye swings at his face, but Popeye’s fist passes harmlessly through as the Doctor turns intangible. Puzzled, Popeye takes another swing, then another, then unleashes a furious flurry of punches, repeatedly failing to make contact. Manhattan rolls his eyes. “I think this has gone on long enough.” Manhattan grows to a height of fifty feet, then stomps on Popeye as if stomping a cockroach. The asphalt buckles and shatters under his foot with a deafening boom, and the resulting tremor triggers the alarms of every parked car for block. Manhattan withdraws his foot, and Popeye sits up, wobbling dizzily and groaning as tweeting, yellow birds circle his head. Shaking off the stun, Popeye reaches into his shirt and pulls out a large can of spinach. “Enough lolly-gaggin’!” the sailor says, as his grip tightens on the can. Just as the spinach can pops open and the spinach vaults into the air, Doctor Manhattan points his hand at Popeye, and the sailor explodes in a flash of blue light and a shower of gore. Manhattan returns to normal size and begins to walk off as Popeye’s sailor-cap floats down and lands on the ground beside his pipe. '''K— ' '''The air-borne blob of spinach lands on the entrance of Popeye’s pipe. After a moment, the pipe twitches as if haunted, then suddenly sucks the spinach in like a siphon hose. The bloody splatter that is Popeye’s remains rises off the ground, whirls around like a cyclone and comes together, solidifying. Popeye’s body completely regenerates to perfect health as his anthem plays. The sailor flexes his bicep, and the muscle momentarily becomes transparent, shown an image of advancing tank, then a battle ship, then a launching rocket, then a mushroom cloud. The sailor rolls up his sleeve and shoots a menacing glare at Doctor Manhattan’s back. “Hope you’re ready for Round 2.” Manhattan turns and looks over his shoulder just as Popeye rushes down the street and lands a hay-maker to Manhattan’s jaw. A sonic boom rings out, shattering windows as Manhattan staggers back. Manhattan rubs his jaw, his expression still calm. “I foresaw this, but somehow I had trouble believing it could be accurate. You’re actually strong enough to hurt me.” Popeye hops up and down in place, rolling his fists over each other in front of his face. “Ready to give up yet?” Wordlessly, Doctor Manhattan raises his hands, and both Manhattan and Popeye vanish in a flash of blue light. When they reappear, they are surrounding by a cold, yellowish-red desert. Popeye looks around, vaguely confused. “Where the heck are we?” Manhattan gestures, and a massive clock mechanism begins to rise out of the desert around them. “We’re on the planet Mars. I want no part in this ridiculous squabble, but if I must fight, I would prefer to minimize collateral damage. There’s no one for us to hurt up here, and no one to interrupt us. Now we may continue.” “Have it yer way.” Manhattan fires a blast of telekinetic energy at Popeye, but Popeye uppercuts the blast, deflecting it into the space. Manhattan then teleports behind Popeye and fires another blast, but Popeye backhands the blast, and it hits and disintegrates part of Manhattan’s giant clock. A third blast screams towards Popeye, but he punches it straight back at Doctor Manhattan. As the blast strikes Manhattan in the chest, his body quivers as he strives to resist his own disintegrating force, and he is momentarily stunned. Chuckling wickedly, Popeye spins his mouth facing it downwards, then blows. A massive flame erupts from the end of the pipe and he flies towards Manhattan like a rocket, then begins battering the Doctor with an onslaught of punches while the Star Spangle Banner blares in the background. Doctor Manhattan teleports away, but Popeye immediately grabs the fabric the space-time continuum, rips it open with his bare hands, reaches into the hole he’s created and pulls Manhattan out by his neck. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, pally,” the sailor quips, before slamming his fist over Manhattan’s head so hard Manhattan forms a crater in the surface of Mars. Manhattan stands, staggering, then splits himself into an army of clones, but Popeye keeps coming. He dodges a barrage of telekinetic blasts while zipping across the surface of Mar like a bomber-plane, punching clone after clone of Manhattan. He eventually punches all the clones back into each other, forcing Manhattan back into a single form, then launches him sky-high with an upper-cut. The jet-flame from his pipe still blazing, he launches himself after the doctor. Manhattan throws up a hand and blocks Popeye’s first punch, and Popeye screams past him, whirls around and come in for another punch. Manhattan manages to block the next few blows, but Popeye increases his speed, and keep whirling around Manhattan until it seems he’s coming from every direction at once. Doctor Manhattan cannot keep up, and Popeye’s blows slams into his skull, chest and abdomen. Popeye slams down on Manhattan’s back with a two-fisted hammer-blow, and Manhattan sails down and crashes into the center of his giant clock, destroying it. Immense pieces of clock-work fall around Doc as Popeye zooms down and hits him the face so hard, Manhattan explodes into a mass of scattered blue light. “Ug-guh-guh-guh-guh-guh-guh-guh!” the sailor laughs. Dusting his hands, Popeye fires up his pipe again and flies back towards Earth. ''…K.— '' As Popeye arrives back on earth, the power of his spinach finally wearing off, he sees Doctor Manhattan floating above him. Popeye stares up, shocked. “Yous!? But I—” Manhattan cocks his head, frowning. “Did you truly believe that brute force was enough to conquer me? I foresaw this outcome from the beginning. It has been so long since I was actually challenged, the idea of a being who could exceed my power, even temporarily, intrigued me. I allowed you to control our fight for a time, out of pure interest, but even knocking me into atoms is no more than an annoyance. Reassembling myself was the first trick I learned.” Popeye scowls and pushes his hat forward. “Ya want me to knock ya to pieces again?” “…I would offer you another chance to leave peacefully, but I can foresee that you won’t.” Popeye pulls another can of spinach out of his hat and cuts it open with the flame on his pipe, but just as he lifts the can to pour the spinach into his mouth, Doc raises a hand. The atomic structure of the spinach instantly shifts, dark green leaves transformed into tiny pieces of granite and silica, and Popeye gets a mouthful of sand. The sailor sputters, spewing wet sand everywhere, then reaches for another can, annoyed. This time he squeezes the spinach into the air, and Manhattan turns the mass of vegetables into a puff of steam drifts into the air. Popeye gazes up, horrified, before quickly reaching for another can of spinach, then another, but Manhattan transforms every blob of spinach into something useless, denying Popeye his power-source. Popeye reaches into his shoe, desperate to find one last can of spinach, but comes up empty. The sailor looks up just as a massive set of blue fingers reaches down and wraps around his body. Manhattan brings the sailor up to eye-level, scowls with contempt, and teleports the sailor away. Less than a fraction of a second later, Popeye’s body reappears in the core of the sun, and is vaporized by the heat of the searing plasma before he can even feel pain. Not a trace of his body remains, not even his cap or his pipe. …'K.O! FOR REAL THIS TIME!!!' Doctor Manhattan gazes sadly at the sun for a moment. Then he vanishes, in search of a quieter, more peaceful planet, where he can spend some time alone. Post-Battle Analysis Pixie: Whoa! Talk about overkill. Spider: Deciding the victor here was no easy task, since neither combatant has ever revealed the real limits of their power. Pixie: So let’s get the obvious out of the way: Doctor Manhattan is ''way out of base-level Popeye’s league. Popeye has more skill and experience in hand-to-hand, but when you’re fighting someone who has infinite strength and can turn intangible, teleport and vaporize you at a whim, having more hand-to-hand skill isn’t going to do a whole lot for you. We all knew this fight wasn’t going anywhere until Popeye reached for the spinach. Spider: What you might not have seen coming is that in terms of raw power, a spinach-fueled Popeye out-classes even Doctor Manhattan. While Manhattan is bound by consistent laws of physics, Popeye isn’t, and if Popeye was able to overcome his own animator, who has absolutely unlimited control over Popeye’s universe, he could certainly overcome Doctor Manhattan in a direct contest of strength. However, Manhattan’s ability to see into the future gave him insight into his opponent’s weaknesses that Popeye could not match, and this ultimately turned the tables in Manhattan’s favor. Popeye is not a very tactical fighter, and even at his brightest, he would have no way of knowing about tachyons and their ability to block Manhattan’s precognition. Pixie: Doc foresaw the power Popeye would gain from spinach, and planned accordingly. Since Doc already knew that Popeye would eventually outclass him in power, he faked his death. Even though Popeye could theoretically kill Doctor Manhattan by punching his atoms out of existence or by punching him so hard he turned into a stack of Oscar statues or doing something else silly like that, Popeye had no way of knowing about Doctor Manhattan’s ability to reassemble himself, so it was easy for Doc to fool Popeye into thinking he had won. And that’s where Popeye relying on spinach bit him in the ass. Spider: Yes... while Popeye relies on the temporary effects of spinach to keep up with Manhattan, Manhattan’s powers were not hindered by some time limit, so it was simply a matter of waiting for Popeye’s powers to dwindle. After that, Manhattan’s foresight and alchemy gave him the power to cut off Popeye’s power source by transforming the spinach into other forms of matter. While Popeye was able to come regenerate from nothing but a pipe while using spinach the first time he was destroyed, Manhattan didn’t give him a second chance. Without any trace of spinach left to resuscitate him, Popeye could not survive Manhattan’s wrath. Pixie: Popeye may have been strong to finach, but Doctor Manhattan shows him who the real star of this battle was. Spider: The winner is Doctor Manhattan. Category:InkSpider Category:Completed What-If? Death Battles Category:Anti Hero themed Death Battles Category:'Comic Books' Themed Death Battles Category:What-If? Death Battles Category:What-If? Death Battles completed in 2016